


grabby hands

by blindbatalex



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Pining, Sick Fic, also lest i forget, and one diehard crocs fan, cameos by other bruins, i dont endorse the said habits, if it didn, if it didn't have pining, im putting all my experience in the work force to good use???, like a corporate au??, now a multichapter fic upon popular demand, unhealthy work habits, what would a fic by me be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-01 01:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17235134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blindbatalex/pseuds/blindbatalex
Summary: When his colleague Brad is sick with the flu but is also refusing to go home Patrice has to take the matters into his own hands to make sure he gets the rest he needs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> By the way of warnings there is one passing reference to throwing up, another one to a past bike accident, neither of which are graphic. 
> 
> Blame Jason for the title I'm still wheezing.

Patrice can tell there is something off about the office from the moment he walks in. 

On the surface everything seems normal. Sidney from IT is wearing bright yellow crocs under jeans again despite being told off at least a dozen of times for it, but he knows he is too good and too indispensable for anyone to take any real action. Anders looks about as confused as his usual about the fact that he seems to be working here and Jake and Charlie are setting up a dare on whether they can play an Atari game on a Bloomberg terminal which Patrice really doesn’t want to find out more on.

He swivels in his chair, and wonders if it’s sleep deprivation finally getting to him. Around him keyboards clack, phones ring and a voice trained to be always cordial says _so good to hear from you John, how are the kids?_ and Patrice can’t stop tapping his foot on the floor because something is just _off_.

He looks around to see if someone has changed the lights, dimmed them or made them brighter somehow, but they are the same. He compares where everyone sits to the official seating chart in case first year analysts - spearheaded by Anders - convinced first year associates to switch places with them again but they haven’t and when he goes to Quadier to ask if he thinks something is out of place because it’s really getting to him by now, Quaider shrugs and says ‘same old same old’.

Then around noon, he closes his eyes to listen and that’s when it hits him. It’s Brad. Brad isn’t out today but Patrice hasn’t heard his voice or his laughter once since the morning. 

See, there are many things you can say about Brad but quiet is not one of them. He has a voice and a laugh that can be heard from a one mile radius and he spends 90% of the time he is in the office talking to someone or other about one thing or another. Patrice has joked to Zee a couple of times it’s the secret foundation that holds the office together, something they miss when he is out. 

He takes his laptop to sit next to Patrice and talks at him whenever he is working a late night too, says he can’t concentrate otherwise. 

Patrice has had to tell him off a couple of times because _he_ can’t concentrate if there is someone jabbering on about faceoff win percentages and favorite Excel functions non-stop next to him at 10pm, but-

But now - Patrice sits back and listens to confirm and nope - there is not even a chuckle drifting from Brad’s corner.

Intrigued, Patrice makes his way down there, finds Brad dead quiet and slumped in his chair. His fingers are curled around a mug of tea, he is coughing intermittently and he is fighting to keep his eyes open and focused on a Word document on his screen. He doesn’t see Patrice coming, and all but jumps in his chair when Patrice says hi.

“You look horrible,” Patrice says, taking in with concern the perspiration on Brad’s forehead, the dark circles under his eyes and just how pale his skin is.

“Thanks, man,” Brad retorts with an attempt at a grin, “you look perfect as always.”

“I told him to go home three times already,” Tuukka chimes from behind his own computer with something like disinterest.

“Can’t.” Brad shrugs. “I have too much work.”

Patrice reaches out a hand, and yep- “what you have is a fever. Christ, Brad-”

Brad tells him he is fine and even if he wasn’t Bruce wanted this report on his desk yesterday and he has a meeting with some end clients in the afternoon. Patrice tells him his health comes before all of that. He looks like death warmed over and he is burning up; what he needs is medication and fluids and rest.

“With all due respect, St. Patrice,” Brad replies, an edge of annoyance breaking through the humor, “unless you will do my work for me every minute we spend talking is an extra minute I’ll need to stay in tonight, so.”

He gives Patrice a pointed look, to say I gotcha, and then swivels back to type slowly in his document without waiting for a response.

“Deal,” Patrice says before marching away. Two can play at this game.

*

In twenty minutes he’s roped Torey into leading the afternoon meeting with the clients, dragged Charlie and Jake away from the poor Bloomberg terminal and put them in charge of drafting the remaining sections of the draft with express orders to follow up with him if they have questions, and talked to Bruce to push back the deadline for a final draft by a day so he can clean up whatever Charlie and Jake write tomorrow.

Brad sort of just looks at him with wide eyes. 

“You did what now?” he asks slowly, still laboring under the misconception that he is the only one who can be stubborn.

“What you told me to. Now go home please.”

Brad blinks at him, runs a hand through his face like he is trying to comprehend, and says “but the report- Jake and Charlie-” like he can’t quite.

It takes Patrice another five minutes to walk through the details again, answering and anticipating Brad’s questions, but in the end he convinces him that he has all angles covered. He is Patrice Bergeron and he does not half ass a job.

“Okay okay Mr. Perfect, you got me,” Brad says with a chuckle. “If you losers are so eager to work in my place I might as well go get some sleep.” He winks. “Or watch porn or whatever.”

Patrice allows himself a private smile. If he has to stay a couple of hours longer to make sure this draft gets written he doesn’t mind if it means Brad isn’t killing himself at his desk for no reason.

But then Brad gets up, too quickly, and his legs almost give way under him. He reaches out to grasp at Patrice’s shoulder to keep his balance, eyes closed, and oh-.

He is fine after a moment, joking about how he “got” Patrice again, except he isn’t clearly. He doesn’t have anyone to go home to either, having recently broken up with his long term boyfriend, and if he won’t go to a hospital he should at least definitely not be alone right now. Just in case.

When Patrice voices his concern, Brad asks with his trademark smirk as he puts on his coat- “what you wanna come make me soup?”

*

“You know I meant that as a joke, right?” Brad asks from his side of the Uber. He looks like he is going to say more but a coughing fit gets there first and there are tears in his eyes by the time it passes. “God I hate the flu” he mutters weakly, wiping at them with the back of his hand.

Patrice wishes he remembered to take a bottle of water with them. If he let Brad be though, he has a sense Brad would have passed out before the day was over.

“Joke or no joke you are stuck with me,” he tells Brad. The Uber driver looks between the two of them from his rear view mirror with concern, not so much for their well being as for the sanitization of his car.

Brad turns halfway towards him, rests his head against the back of the seat like he doesn’t trust to hold it up on his own. He has pulled into himself as much as he can and his eyes are drooping despite his best efforts. It’s really a pitiable sight given how alive and energetic he is on any normal day and a sight that wants Patrice to unfasten his seatbelt, scoot over, and draw Brad in until he is safe and comfortable in his arms.

“You know,” Brad says warmly through eyes that are half closed, “sometimes I think I get you, and at other times I have no clue.”

Patrice chuckles and tells him he is like an open book but he isn’t sure Brad hears him.

“Like you crashed your bike, cracked a rib, decided to come to work instead of going to the hospital like a sane person, landed a major deal as if you weren’t in a world of pain and then Zee and I had to drag you to the E.R. by the collar in the evening because you couldn’t breathe but still didn’t want to go and then you tell me from your hospital bed, you’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.”

Ah.

That incident made Patrice a bit of a legend in the firm, almost certainly led to a promotion a couple of months later, and it is the reason HR and legal both hate him to this day, because they had to write a whole new clause in the firm policy to state that working while in poor health was not necessary, required, or encouraged by the company.

“But,” Brad finishes, “then you are leaving work early to make me soup?”

His eyes are closed now and Patrice looks past him, at the bright winter day outside- the sun shining on the barren trees and the hordes of hungry white collar workers fighting for a place in lunch lines that are spilling to the sidewalk.

He really did not mind coming into work that day, despite the pain. He likes his job, a little too much maybe, even though he was an associate at the time the clients trusted him; he needed to be there for the deal to go through and he was. He hasn’t thought about it in a while too, not until Brad brought it up, but Brad-

“Well, it’s not the same thing and it’s not like I’m taking the day off,” he says softly. “I will work remotely from your apartment and Torey can handle a regular monthly meeting.”

A fire truck goes past them, red and loud and urgent, drowning all sound until it’s disappeared. 

_It’s not the same thing because it was me in pain that day and not you._

That’s an odd thought.

Brad had shouted at him that day, after they reinflated his lung, told him he was impossible and thundered out of his room. He hadn’t visited him in the hospital either, not that Patrice expected him to- they were colleagues who got along well but Brad had no duty or obligation to him.

Patrice has never thought about what he would do if their roles were reversed, what that says about either of them.

“I thought you’d be proud of me for powering through it,” Brad murmurs with a smile that’s fading as sleep sinks its claws deeper and deeper into his skin.

Patrice remembers the ending of the new clause they put in the firm policy.

_For example if you are in a car crash, please go to the nearest emergency room and seek medical help no matter how much you think your tasks cannot be put off or redistributed to others. We assure you that they can._

*

Brad throws it onto his bed with a groan as soon as they get to his apartment, still in his work clothes. Patrice takes off his shoes and spreads the comforter over him but that’s all he can do as Brad is out like a light before Patrice is even done.

The apartment is- it has a lot of light and it’s tidy and free of clutter, sleek and minimalist in a way that fits Brad. It feels empty but that’s just because Patrice is used to having a small terrier running around at all times in his place. Speaking of, if Brad ever came over to his unannounced he would probably have a heart attack from the sheer mess Patrice has lying around - from socks on the floor to old copies of the Economist sprawled over his coffee table - on any given day. Brad even tried to apologize for how untidy his apartment was in his half-asleep state and Patrice can only infer that he meant the one throw pillow that’s sitting slightly askew as everything else seems to be spotless and the place in better shape than his has been in at least six months.

He chuckles to himself at that as he makes his way to the kitchen to make good on his promise for soup.

Brad’s fridge has only a single magnet on it and a photo stuck under it - Brad by a lake with a woman who resembles him enough to be family - and it’s stocked. Patrice knows he likes to cook and knows that he is good at it from the few times he had Brad’s cooking at potlucks with their coworkers. That’s a lot more than what could be said for Patrice but he has enough to make a simple chicken soup recipe he found online.

*

The soup turns out both a little bland and too salty in the end. 

“You really deserve better,” Patrice says to himself as he decides he has done all he can for this dish, doesn’t know if he means Brad or the soup.

Brad is still asleep when he goes to wake him. His mouth is open, and he is snoring lightly.

He looks- Patrice takes a moment to take in his sleeping figure. Objectively he looks kinda gross, the way all people sick with the flu are, but his gelled hair is falling to his forehead in strands and yeah- 

The soup is getting cold.

Brad looks at him through his eyelashes, only part way through the veil of sleep, and gropes for his phone on the nightstand. 

“Chances are you won’t throw up the Ibuprofen if you take it with some food.” Patrice reasons. “It will be good for your throat too. You can go back to sleep after.” 

And _then_ he notices the photo frame on the nightstand, next to where Brad is searching for his phone, notices what’s in it.

It’s a selfie of the two of them, taken in the office at 3am on that night.

They had finally finished a proposal that was kicking their ass the entire month, five hours before it was due. They are exhausted and all over the place and more than a little drunk in the selfie- Patrice has his tie tied around his forehead and Brad has lost his shirt entirely with his tongue sticking out where he has slotted himself so neatly under Patrice’s arm for the pose.

“What’s this?” he asks, reaching a hand to pick it up.

He wondered that night- Brad is always even more affectionate than his usual when he is drunk and he brought a bottle of whisky specifically as motivation for when they would finish, and he was flush against Patrice. And Patrice wondered- but Brad had a boyfriend, and even if he didn’t office romances-

And this grainy shaky selfie has been here on-

“Oh that?” Brad replies, sitting up and fully awake now. He looks panicked for a moment, staring at Patrice slack jawed before he starts to cough. Patrice passes him the water, rubs at his back but also sees what Brad’s doing for what it is, doesn’t miss the way Brad takes the frame from Patrice and slides it under a pillow in between his coughs.

*

“I thought you didn’t cook,” Brad says looking at Patrice as he takes a sip from the soup. 

“I don’t. You might get poisoned as a legal disclaimer.”

Brad closes his eyes, bounces his head a little from side to side. Patrice feels like he is on Master Chef or some such thing waiting for a verdict as the cameras dramatically zoom in on the beads of sweat on his forehead.

Brad opens his eyes and smiles.

“There are worse ways to go, eh? I like it. Though to be fair everything tastes like hay at the moment.” 

His meager, pitiable creation has passed the test. Patrice smiles too.

 _So we are not going to talk about that picture?_ he wants to ask, but doesn’t- doesn’t know what he would want to talk about exactly. Besides Brad is sick.

And yet there they are, previously on Brad’s nightstand and now under his pillow, the two of them frozen in time in this apartment that has no ornaments or sentimental pictures lining its walls, drunk and together and-

 _Happy_ would be too strong a word for when you just finished work at 3am after a couple of consecutive 70 hour weeks, but you know.

He will give Brad his Ibuprofen now and take his temperature again in an hour or so, make him ginger tea in the evening, he decides. He can go home, feed and walk Wilson, and get a change of clothes to stay here tonight too, just in case. 

And once he’s had a chance to think, and once Brad is alright, well-


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is an offhand mention of tarantula hawks in this chapter just in case insects aren't your thing.

Nate breaks up with him on a Sunday. They haven’t been happy together in a long time but it still hurts like a bitch and Nate’s eyes are narrowed and his voice is cold. Brad didn’t know the same thin lips that fit so perfectly against his own, that tugged into the softest of smiles early in the morning, told him he was loved, could carry so much venom.

“You okay?” Patrice asks.

Brad opens his eyes. There is a blanket - no, two - draped over him. Patrice is clacking away into the computer at Brad’s home workstation, his profile lit up by the screens. Brad must have dozed off for a while if it’s already dark outside.

“Yeah.”

His head has stopped throbbing quite as fiercely but he still feels like he has been hit by a truck and gets lightheaded when he stands up. 

Not that it matters if Patrice doesn’t catch him.

“What are you up to?” he asks, dragging a chair next to Pat. That’s the report he was supposed to have finished by now on the screen and brightness is on low but his eyes are still burning looking at it.

He rubs at them with the base of his palms.

Nate had told him to grow a pair and stop being such a crybaby when Brad kept thinking of ways they could still make it work, maybe more than a little teary eyed. That was the last thing Nate said to him before he handed Brad a box of his stuff and told him to have a good life.

Brad hasn’t asked Torey either how the meeting went, if there were any follow-ups he needed to take care of tonight and God knows Patrice has enough work on his plate without having to do Brad’s job for him.

What a mess.

“I am going through the draft Jake sent me and it’s in pretty good shape actually. _You_ are resting,” Patrice says. 

He stops scrolling to look at him. Brad tries to argue that he’s fine now and can take it from there but Patrice has that look of determination in his eyes that signals to analysts, principals, and clients alike that he is taking no arguments. It breaks a little when he puts a hand on Brad’s forehead and smiles, mostly to himself. 

“At least you aren’t too warm.”

“Told you I was fine.”

And there it is, back again.

Patrice rolls his eyes, tells him “there is a big difference between not burning up like a sidewalk in August and fine Marchy,” tells him he’s got this, and escorts him back to the couch.

Brad pouts from where he has been deposited under the blankets on a cushions so soft they are dragging him into themselves like quicksand against his will.

“You wanna go to your bed?” 

Patrice is smiling at him. He has lost his shirt at some point and is down to a V-neck undershirt that highlights the hours he has spent at the gym but really, looks domestic.

“I’m not going back to sleep,” Brad murmurs and Patrice is smiling down at him from where he is standing next to his desk, telling him they are going out for cupcakes.

Brad looks at him and asks if he lost his mind. Patrice Bergeron does not blow off work for cupcakes at 3pm on a Monday and Brad has been such a disaster since the morning that he has enough work to keep him there until midnight.

“It will all still be here for you when you get back,” Patrice counters, tugging at his arm, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “Come on.”

If Brad was any stronger he would say no. But he is weary and spent and he doesn’t have any fight left in him, and so he doesn’t. 

The fall afternoon is crisp and wonderful around them, the sun licks playfully at their backs on the short walk over, and Brad almost breaks down over his chocolate mocha cupcake when Patrice puts a hand on his back and tells him whatever it is he is going through it’s going to be alright.

There is a double chocolate chip cookie in his desk drawer the next morning, a handmade chocolate penguin the day after, a mini chocolate croissant on the day following. Patrice doesn’t say a word about it and since Brad told some of his coworkers about his break-up he has no way of knowing it is Patrice for sure, but.

As he eats the day’s treat - a raspberry macaron - maybe, he thinks, it’s actually going to be alright. There is this spark in his chest, a sliver of sunlight that makes him smile despite himself. Not right away, he knows that, but eventually. 

**

The house is plunged into darkness the next time he wakes up. The room around him is perfectly still - no keys clacking, no light from the screen, only the distant sounds and blurry lights of traffic flowing underneath.

Brad stands up and stretches. No Patrice. He has a sense that he has slept on and off more today than he did over the last few days combined and the sudden silence stings just a little if he is honest though he had no expectation that Patrice so much as come home with him in the first place.

He turns on the lights and turns on his computer to catch up with his email and-

There is a note stuck underneath the mouse. 

‘Stepping out for a couple of hours will be back text me if you need anything --Pat’ it reads in Patrice’s long graceful letters.

Oh.

He smiles to himself.

There is no timestamp on the note; he has no idea for how long Patrice has been gone so if he is going to catch up on work before he gets back there is no time to lose.

 

*

Turns out Patrice just went home for a couple of hours to feed and walk his dog and get a change of clothes because he intends to stay the night, which Brad reminds him is wholly unnecessary, he really is fine, but.

Here Patrice is now sitting across from him on the kitchen island, with no complaints whatsoever about how bland their dinner of lean grilled chicken and rice must be to him as nice as it is for Brad’s unhappy stomach and- 

“How about this?” Patrice asks with a devilish grin, chewing on a piece of chicken, “Bruins win the Stanley Cup _but_ you have to be a Yankees fan for the rest of your life?”

Brad shudders at the mental image of himself in an gross striped jersey, chanting _let’s go Yankees_ at the Yankee stadium among gross Yankees fans.

It’s been ages since Brad has seen Patrice in sweatpants, has never lounged with him at either of their apartments like this, just the two of them, and Brad still has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders but he can swear that it’s been a couple of degrees warmer inside ever since Patrice came back.

“Don’t need to,” he replies, affecting confidence he doesn’t quite have. “We are winning the Cup as is, baby.”

“Oh please. You are barely clinging to the last wildcard spot.”

“Yeah but that’s because half the senior team was out injured. Once we get healthy no one can stop us. Mark my words.”

He has a sense he is going to regret that claim once April rolls around, given, but some horrors are too much to even contemplate.

“My turn. Quebec City gets a hockey team _but_ you have to work with Kampfer every day for the rest of your life.”

There. That’s a good one.

Patrice laughs out of surprise, which normally sounds like a host of angels singing but he happens to be drinking water in that moment and it leads to him spurting some of it out onto the island and nearly choking on the rest.

Brad walks around to rub at his back, feeling marginally guilty though his reaction is too funny not to laugh. (Patrice has a really nice back, all solid lean muscle under Brad’s palm.) Once his coughs subside Patrice wipes at his eyes and says he would take it.

“Really?” Brad asks with wide eyes, helping clean the spilled water. Kampfer transferred to the New York office this past summer and has been one unending headache ever since, loud and brash and quite incompetent with zero self-awareness to boot.

“I take the deal, we get the Nordiques back and then right, I release a tarantula hawk in Kampfer’s office. I am covert enough no one ties the crime to me and either the unspeakable pain teaches him a lesson or he leaves. Win win.” 

Patrice winks and it nearly kills Brad. He has thought this through and to see Patrice, the kind, sweet Patrice contemplate releasing tarantula hawks into Kampfer’s office is enough to break any man let alone poor sick Brad for whom laughing that hard is a surefire bridge to a nasty coughing fit.

Once he can breathe again Patrice does his best to compose his face and tells him they should speak of more somber matters before one of them actually dies.

Brad nods in agreement though he hasn’t quite stopped grinning.

*

He tries to make a bed on the couch for Patrice before he goes to sleep but gets told off and so he just leaves the pillows and the sheets and the clean towels there and retreats to his own room.

It’s still fucking unreal how seriously Patrice is about taking care of him, when he himself will work through anything. 

Is it pity? he wonders as he lies in bed with a knot in his throat, the way he wondered when Patrice offered to take him out for cupcakes. Is he that pitiable, broken, pathetic? Would Patrice do the same because that’s just who he is if Quaider or Sidney from IT was sick instead?

Brad doesn’t like that thought though he can’t quite tell why.

When he turns to his side, his hand comes across something hard and pointy under the other pillow and it takes him a moment to remember what it is. 

He turns on the bedside lamp.

There they are in the photo frame, him and Patrice that one night they got smashed at the office because they were overworked and sleep deprived and finally free. He isn’t a sentimental man. The only pictures he had out in his apartment is a shot with his sister tacked onto the fridge which he still has and a picture with Nate by his bed in this photo frame. He’d broken down in tears that first night when he went to bed and saw it there and it took him until the next morning to take out the picture and rip it out and he should have ditched the frame too maybe but it was made of oakwood with a lovely coat of laquer and Patrice had treated him to cupcakes that day, Patrice who has always been sweet and kind, and here was this one time in recent memory when he was probably delirious but happy and-

He never thought Patrice would come into his fucking bedroom and see it.

Brad turns to lie on his back again with a huff. He kicks off the covers in a hot flash and his head is pounding.

Patrice was sweet enough at dinner but that’s just who he is, Patrice is the best man Brad knows, and God knows what he must have thought when he walked in and saw this photo frame. 

It’s probably testament to his character that he is still here and testament to how weak Brad is that he is glad that he is, despite the guilt and the shame.

*

In his dream he is supposed to finish up an Excel spreadsheet and present it to clients and he is running out of time and when he looks he notices that the last table is wrong.

He takes in a breath and tells himself to stay calm it’s just one table he can fix this there is time it will be fine. 

Except the file has hidden tabs doesn’t it scores and scores of them he doesn’t know how he never so much as noticed before and the formulas in the table they dance from one tab to the other to the next before they come back again in one infinite circle. Brad tries he really tries to find and lookup the data but he can’t and the spreadsheet is leering at him laughing at him tabs keeps multiplying and multiplying until a hand reaches out from the screen and pulls him in.

“Brad?” Patrice asks footsteps that fall ever closer I’m here Brad screams but in vain when he taps on the screen it makes no sound. Patrice sighs can’t believe he left he mutters I trusted you you know Brad screams and shouts and pounds on the screen we trusted you with this one minor thing and you let all of us down but that’s what you do isn’t it you always let people down.

_No please in here Patrice I swear please-_

“Brad?”

“I didn’t leave I didn’t mean to let you down and I’m sorry just-”

Brad wipes at his eyes, his hands come back wet and he is panting and his skin is on fire and Patrice is right there next to him on the bed but he won’t hear Brad Brad who let them down, he let all of them down because that’s what he does and he can’t even ex-

“Hey.” Patrice touches his shoulder. How is his voice so kind even now when Brad- “hey breathe man. It’s just a bad dream, Marchy. You are alright. I’ve got you.”

Brad stares at him for a moment uncomprehending there are dark circles under his eyes and his hair is mussed Patrice’s hair is always as perfect as he is and he isn’t wearing a shirt and since when can he hear Brad and- oh. 

Around him are the familiar walls of his bedroom and the furniture, the bed lamp is turned on and Patrice is sitting next to him on the bed, Patrice who is staying over to look after him, the ridiculous man that he is.

Brad tries to take in a deep breath, ends up stuttering through it and with a strangled groan at the back of his throat.

It’s just a nightmare and he is fine. He is soaked in sweat and trembling but he is fine. 

He still closes his eyes and leans forward until his forehead hits Patrice’s chest, really hoping that’s alright and is is because Patrice’s hand that was on Brad’s shoulder slides to his back until his fingers are carding through Brad’s hair and he is shushing Brad, telling him he’s got him, that he is alright over and over again and slowly, slowly Brad feels his breathing return to normal again, knows that he is safe and awake and okay.

“Ugh,” Brad says once he has calmed down and drawn away, affecting a grin he doesn’t quite feel, “when I said nights in my bed are always fiery this was probably not what you had in mind. But also don’t tell Torey because I have a reputation to uphold.”

Patrice passes him some water which Brad takes; he didn’t realize how parched his throat was until the cool liquid hits it and brings with it a wave of relief.

“I won’t tell.” Patrice smiles, though it’s to humor him than anything else. What a mess. “You are running a temperature again, I’ll get your meds, a shower might help but at the very least you should change out of those soaked clothes.”

Brad opts for the latter because he really doesn’t have energy for a shower right now but feels marginally better when he is back in bed in fresh clothes and fresh sheets.

“Do you want me to stay?” Patrice asks with a smile.

“No,” Brad tells him. Of course not. He is a grown man who can handle a run of the mill nightmare. Patrice has sacrificed enough and done enough for him as is.

Brad doesn’t wait until he is out of the room to turn on the Bruins game he DVRed from yesterday, his favorite activity when he can’t sleep, which- you wouldn’t believe how many hockey games Brad watches every week.

Patrice stops at the door and looks at the screen.

“You didn’t tell me there was going to be hockey,” he says, “now I want to stay.”

Yes.

Brad taps the spot next to him on the king bed, tells himself he doesn’t care either way.

*

“There you go,” the loveliest voice Brad has ever heard tells him, softly, kindly, wisely. Brad decides he must be a wizard like Gandalf especially when in the next moment he can feel himself flying and then it’s soft. “Get some rest Brad.”

But the ground shifts and the warmth next to him retracts. The warmth is the wizard and he is moving away and he mustn’t. Brad loves him and he will be so alone and cold on his own.

“No,” he says, swinging an arm and a leg into the dark and feels so happy when it hits warm. “Stay.”

The voice chuckles and maybe it isn’t a wizard after all maybe Brad died and went to heaven and it’s an angel of the Lord next to him instead a voice like melody like music. In that case he most certainly must stay.

_Alright. I will stay._

Yes.

Brad snuggles closer to the angel the source radiating warmth, wraps his arms and legs around him so that he won’t escape and leave Brad alone. 

_I love you,_ Brad says and he really does the way one loves the stars on a pitch black night the way one loves the moon, _but you must stay._

There is soft laughter again, so beautiful, and then he is bathed in warmth and love. Fingers card through his hair.

 _I love you too,_ the angel says and Brad thinks he will cry- to be human to be him and the angel still loves him back. “Now sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Tarantula hawks are amazing okay. They are spider wasps that only feed on tarantulas (how badass can you get) and the [official advice](https://www.sciencefriday.com/articles/why-you-dont-want-to-get-stung-by-a-tarantula-hawk/) if you are stuck by one is to drop to the ground and scream.  
> \- Also this is random but Excel can be a bitch and if you have questions about functions etc I'm pretty good at it, hmu you guys.  
> \- There shall be a chapter three next week so be on the lookout.


	3. Chapter 3

With rest and sleep, Brad looks marginally better in the morning. Patrice considers working from home one more day but Brad tells him to go and it would be overkill. 

Brad has rolled over to his corner of the bed by the time they wake up and Patrice to his and they don’t discuss how they spent a good portion of the night snuggling. Patrice isn’t even sure Brad remembers it. He was half awake at best when he pulled Patrice back and told him to stay, a little too warm for comfort, sick. But he all but melted in Patrice’s arms, buried his head in Patrice’s neck and sighed when Patrice hugged him back.

_I love you but you must stay._

Brad told him that before, the first part, but he told that to Anders once too because Anders ordered two coffees by accident and brought one to Brad.

And, as Patrice reminds himself again, Brad is sick. He was so pale and scared when he woke up from his nightmare, Patrice could feel him shaking as he held him to his chest, and-

“Earth to Bergy, one two, is anyone home?”

Startled, Patrice looks up. Jake is standing by his desk, arms crossed at his chest, and giving him a pointed look; he must have been there for-

“Has spending the whole day with Marchy fried your circuits?” Jake asks with an easy laugh.

Patrice hopes the way his cheeks burn is something only he can feel and not something visible to the outside world.

“Sorry,” he says pulling himself to the present, “what’s up?”

*

He back to Brad’s in the evening after work. Brad greets him with a wide smile, tells him he has been bored out of his mind. The next day is a Saturday and Patrice asks if he wants to come over to his for the weekend. He doesn’t like leaving his dog alone for too long over the weekends or getting a dog sitter unless he has to. Though maybe it’s a bad idea because Brad is going to take one look at the mess that is his apartment and be horrified, but he could covertly clean a little around-

Brad claps him on the shoulder.

“You are a good man Saint Patrice. I think I will be fine though, but- thank you for-.” He throws his hands in a circular motion, as if to say for everything.

Right.

Overkill.

When he is putting on his coat to leave there is a moment at the door; Brad looks at him like he wants to say something and Patrice stops, giving him the space.

“Seriously man,” Brad says after a beat, not quite meeting his eye, “I really needed to be told to go home yesterday and I don’t know how to repay you for everything you did for me.”

He is hugging himself like he is too cold outside the safety of the blankets, and there is a sickly shine to his skin, and he looks-

Patrice dismisses it with a wave of his hand. Brad has nothing to be embarrassed about; Patrice would have-

“If I catch whatever you have, you can look after me and we will call it even,” he says with a smile, “though be warned the state of my place might give you a heart attack.”

Brad looks up then to meet his eye, tells him they have a deal with a smile.

*

Patrice hates being sick. He can power through almost anything but he hates the nausea and the aching of his joints and the way he wants to crawl out of his own skin when he has the flu because he is somehow always burning and freezing at once.

It makes no sense then that- he isn’t _disappointed_ he doesn’t catch Brad’s bug despite being in such close proximity to him - despite sleeping with Brad tucked into his arms - he has so much work for one, but.

“You my friend, have an immune system of steel,” Brad tells him with wonder the first morning he comes back to the office after a few days of rest and working from home.

“Apparently so,” Patrice replies. Brad looks good and it’s great to see him back to his energetic and exuberant self, and the twinge Patrice feels in his chest- it doesn’t make sense.

*

“So, since you never got sick I still owe you,” Brad tells him that day while they are waiting in line at lunch.

“Oh big time,” Patrice replies, “you are buying me at least three rounds of drinks next time we are out.”

They may call him Saint Patrice but he isn’t saintly enough to refuse voluntary payments of goods and services, especially when those goods come in the form of free beer- a habit leftover from his days as a broke college student.

“We could do that-,” Brad says, frowning at the menu scribbled in chalk on a black board though he always orders the same salad here and probably knows the menu by heart by now. 

Patrice uses his hesitation as an opportunity to drive home a very important reminder because Brad is wrong and he needs to be reminded often and with force. 

“And no Bud lights. I told you before I will tell you again that is not a beer. I deserve-”

“Actually I was thinking-” Brad cuts him off. 

“I had this weekend trip planned to Boston in a couple of weeks right, to go to Habs game and I have an extra ticket and a double room already paid for so I was wondering whether you want to tag along. All expenses on me.”

That- wow. Patrice did not see that coming.

“Why-” _do you have a two-person trip already paid for_ , he doesn’t ask; his brain adds two and two in time.

He tells Brad he really doesn’t have to instead. Jokes aside, Patrice would have done the same for any of his friends, and Brad would have done the same for him had their places been reversed.

“Alright, for one had our places been reversed I would absolutely not be able to drag you out of the office unless you passed out and even then it’s fifty-fifty,” Brad calls him out, his eyebrows halfway up his forehead.

Patrice laughs; he kind of has a point. Boston though- Patrice went to school there and loves the city. It’s been ages since he’s been back and Brad is looking at him and if Patrice didn’t know any better he would say he was nervous, like he was the morning after the night Patrice spent at his place, the night they-

Boston with Brad, with its memories and red brick and Christmas lights on trees that should have come down by now. 

He should say no.

“I will never say no to a free trip,” he says instead with a grin, “though you know I’m expensive and hard to please and you may live to regret your naive offer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im really trying to finish this and move on with my life but it just- keeps multiplying like a pair of plot bunnies left on an island with no natural predators. welp.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now I'm done.

They head out on Friday after work. Brad fights him for the window seat on the train, Patrice doesn’t back down, and he gets his way when the conductor tells them off.

Apparently a best of seven series of paper-rock-scissors for who gets the window seat is not an appropriate contest to hold in the hallway of a train car.

“I was winning anyway,” Patrice says with glee when Brad pouts from his inferior aisle seat.

“We’d only gone three rounds,” Brad huffs. “It’s not as if you will get anything out of that seat anyway; you fall asleep the moment you step foot in a moving vehicle.”

“I do not.”

Brad looks at him, to ask _really?_ without words and oh- if looks could kill. Patrice feels marginally guilty about the heist he pulled but not enough to give up his superior seat.

Outside New York is sinking into the night, receding in light and movement, this city that never sleeps. Patrice looks at it almost transfixed, the blur of color breaking through the shroud of the blue-gray dusk outside his window. It pulls and pulls like a summer breeze on a warm afternoon and when has his eyelids grown so heavy-

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” someone, Brad, says next to him.

“Not sleeping not even a little bit,” Patrice objects.

Patrice is a liar.

*

“You are a liar and my entire arm is numb because of you,” Brad complains as he flexes his right arm and handles his suitcase with his left. 

“I take no blame,” Patrice retorts. “You could have just pushed me to the other side if you were losing feeling in your arm.”

“Next time I will,” Brad says pointedly, knowing full well he won’t.

*

When they make it to their hotel Patrice has a moment of horror as they check in. Brad is quiet in in the softly lit elevator as pleasant music plays softly from the speakers- even he must be tired. But given who was supposed to be the second person on this trip does it mean-

_Brad is small in his arms more so than Patrice expected clinging to him like he is the last source of warmth left in the universe he sighs when Patrice pulls him in closer like he knows he is safe he is and Patrice would move mountains-_

Brad taps their key on the door. It opens to reveal the harbor in all its glory, grand and dark and choppy as the wind howls in the distance and- two queen beds.

Of course.

Brad makes a beeline to the one by the window and throws himself on it, claiming it as his.

“It’s not as if you will get anything out of that bed anyway; you fall asleep the moment you put your head down,” Patrice deadpans.

Brad looks at him, betrayal lingering on his prominent features.

“You may be perfect but you are not funny, you know.”

Patrice puts his suitcase down by the foot of the other bed with a chuckle. He lets Brad have this after the trials of the train journey and doesn’t point out how the left corner of Brad’s mouth keeps twitching up in the shadow of a smile.

*

It’s barely light outside when Patrice wakes up. Given how deep they are into the winter that doesn’t say much. Outside the water is gray blue, same color as the clouds that blanket the sky, a siren’s song that if you looked and listened for too long you might not be able to ever look away.

“If you need me up, I will get up,” Brad mumbles. It startles Patrice. He turns around and finds Brad lying on his belly with his cheek plastered against the pillows and his eyes a quarter of the way open as he tries to keep them focused on Patrice. 

“No,” Patrice tells him, shutting the curtains, “go back to sleep, it’s too early.”

Brad nods, his eyes fall closed, and he is gone in a heartbeat- but not before he tells Patrice this is exactly why he keeps falling asleep the moment he gets on a car or a train.

He has a point, Patrice supposes. He supposes too that if he asked Brad to get up he would do so right away, no questions asked save a half-hearted complaint or two. It’s a scary amount of power to have over someone.

*

The game is- well it is something. 

Patrice is a casual Bruins fan at best. He hasn't cared body and soul for a team since Quebec Nordiques broke his heart as a boy but the crowd in TD Garden is on fire, Brad is buzzing for hours in advance, and it's not difficult for Patrice to get swept in alongside. 

Brad looks good like this, jersey pulled over a sweater with the hood sticking out, chirping at the Habs players in ever more creative ways as they warm up in front of them. He is _alive_ , the way he gets at work sometimes when they have a project he can't wait to lay his hands on, but it's different too. It's a side of Brad Patrice has only seen in glimpses before- late nights at the office when he would pull a key game on one of his screens, weekend hangouts with coworkers where he would sneak covert looks at his phone and his face would shrink and expand depending on the word from the game, but never like this, never at his proclaimed center of the world. 

As the puck drops Patrice wonders what it would be like to be out there on the ice with Brad, whether they would click. Maybe they would be linemates, Patrice at the center, his preferred position back in the day, and Brad at his wing.

 _Marchand to Bergeron and he scores!_ he can almost hear the words in Jack Edwards’ voice with that passion all well scored goals inspire. 

Brad skating to his arms with the widest grin on his face, buzzing, drunk with the ecstasy of it all.

A nondescript doctor's office, pain radiating from his knee even though it's been weeks now. Words like a death knell hanging in the sanitized air - I'm afraid you will never play professionally son.

“Fuck. I could have fucking made that save.”

Patrice blinks. The arena has fallen dead quiet around them save for the blotches of red here and there, cheering. He looks up at the jumbotron.

Canadiens 1 - 0 Bruins.

Shit.

“A one goal lead in the first means nothing,” he tells Brad, “we have so much time.”

Except, it doesn't help when the team lets in another right in front of their eyes only a couple minutes later and proceed to play like zombies only partially brought back from the dead.

“If we pull this off,” Brad says at the intermission, with that stubborn strand of hope all sports fans cling to in the face of reason and proclaimed indifference, “I’m gonna-” He throws his hands in the air; a little bit of beer splashes out at the motion. 

“Admit you are shorter than Torey?”

“I am _not_ shorter than Torey.”

Patrice can see him thinking as they make their way back to their section. They have discussed this before. The way sacrifices to hockey gods work, your offering needs to be personal and inconvenience you in some non-trivial way. You must commit to it, and sometimes, _sometimes_ the gods listen. This game means a lot, so the sacrifice must be to scale.

Brad stops abruptly a few feet from the entrance. Patrice stops with him.

“I know.” Brad says slowly, through gritted teeth, eyes fixed squarely on Patrice, his expression impossible to read.

 _Keep on a shirt at all instances for a year, even when you are working out?_ Patrice doesn’t ask, because in the next moment Brad says-

“If they fight their way out of this hole I will confess my feelings to my crush.”

“Oh.”

The word escapes Patrice’s throat against his will. That he did not see coming. “Yeah,” he says when he recovers, “that seems like a worthy offering.”

He did not realize Brad had a crush.

*

“What’s he like?” Patrice asks, having gulped down most of his beer.

The timing is bad, the rules around inter-office dating at their firm are byzantine, he is 90% sure this trip was originally planned as a romantic getaway with Nate, and when Brad first asked him to come Patrice still thought up a goal. _Engineered by the first line, a thing of beauty that catches the Habs like deer in headlights. The arena a wildfire._

_And Brad-_

Brad’s eyes are fixed firmly on the unmitigated disaster on the ice.

_His eyes wild with ecstacy, and it’s so easy to throw arms around his neck and draw him in._

“Who?”

 _The arena is on fire around them and so are Brad’s lips, his essence, as Patrice draws all of it in._

The Bruins goalie makes a last ditch save.

“Your crush.”

Brad nearly jumps out of his skin. 

_Two forces pulling at each other like gravity, like destiny._

“Ah,” he says a second later, “It doesn’t matter since-” he gestures vaguely at the ice, to say there is no way in hell hockey gods are taking me up on that offer.

Patrice nods. 

*

None of it matters in the end.

Bruins have a few good looks and even pull back one with a couple of minutes left in the game but can’t finish the job. Patrice wonders what it would be like if they did, but that doesn’t matter either.

*

The thing is, it’s easy with Brad. 

It’s easy to banter and laugh and argue over whether Mike’s is better than Modern only to end up going to both. Almost easy enough to forget the heartache, misplaced and quiet in his chest, wandering through the city that was their home for the blink of an eye, even though they didn’t even know the other existed back then.

He takes Brad to his favorite cafe in Harvard square the next day, after they check out of the hotel. Fairy lights in their multitude bounce off from the mirrors and give the place an otherworldly air. They get a seat in the corner and he buys Brad a slice of their chocolate lemon cake he used to spend money he didn’t have on back in college.

Brad loves the cake - four years of college and Brad has never been here before - they share another joke or two and then it’s time to go.

*

He lets Brad have the window seat on the way back. Or rather, Brad shoulders him out of the way, throws himself in the window seat, and grins sweetly at Patrice with triumph but it’s really because Patrice has chosen to take the high road.

“Least you can do is admit when you are beat,” Brad tells him, still grinning. 

“Is that what you do?” Patrice laughs. It really is not. Brad will ask for a rematch and then another the second he knows he can’t cheat his way out of a defeat.

Brad grins at him. “Always,” he says with a wink.

The train pulls out of South Station. Outside the last light of the day is fading out, like summer in September. Boston looks the same as when he first came here years ago and changed, foreign. They haven’t even made it to Back Bay yet and like clockwork Patrice can feel a weight pulling on his eyelids. Maybe Brad had a point yesterday after all.

“Hey,” he says, nudging Brad on the arm and pulling him away from daydreams of his own from the looks of it. 

“Thank you for inviting me. I had a lot of fun.”

Brad shrugs. “Well,” he says, “it was to thank you for looking after me and it’s not like I- I would have cancelled this trip had it not been for. I’m glad.”

There are three small stains on the carpeting, three circles forming an uneven triangle. Someone must have spilled their coffee, because they were hurrying out of their seat to not to miss their stop or because they were careless.

What he is going to say next isn’t easy but it’s right and Patrice has never let it stop him before.

“Your crush. I think you should tell him how you feel. I know it didn’t work out with Nate but- any guy would be lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, about that-” Brad says, swallowing thickly. “I was kind of bummed when they didn’t manage a comeback yesterday.”

“What would you have done if they did?”

Brad barks out a laugh at that, harsh and surprised. The sun makes its way down from behind a cloud and washes the train car in violent, dying light. It gives Brad a halo and colors his cheeks crimson, makes him look almost shy when he looks down.

“You would say come on Brad fulfill your promise and give your crush a call, and I would turn around and say well I don’t need to.”

He looks up. He looks gorgeous backlit against the dying light, hopeful, nervous.

Patrice’s heart sings at the sight, at what Brad is saying. His heartache is a physical thing melting away, dissolving into the tracks they leave behind with each passing second. 

“And why would you do that?”

“Oh come on!” Brad protests before launching into a rambling monologue. “Look, I know okay. I know the timing is shit and the last thing I want is for this to be a rebound and HR already hates you which means we would have to sneak around and you could do oh so much better than me and do you even- maybe it’s just because you are that good of a person and kind to everyone and don’t even get me-”

Patrice finds his hand resting on his thigh puts his own over it. He wanted to hear Brad say the words but it seems cruel now, Brad is so scared, hurt almost. Brad stops at the touch, almost flinches back in surprise. 

“I’m not,” Patrice says, “I am not that kind to everyone. Just to you.”

“Oh,” Brad says, echoing Patrice’s reaction from the day before but it seems light years away. 

For once, this time around Patrice gets to lean in and find Brad’s lips with his own, delight in the sound he makes when he deepens the kiss.

He would fight Tracy from HR, and stacked odds, and the entire roster of the Canadiens if he had to for Brad.

He would fight the world.

*

“I can’t believe we just got together and you still fell asleep,” Brad says flexing the arm Patrice used as his personal pillow. Brad really does make a great pillow and it was even better this time as fingers carded through his hair as he was drifting off. 

“I was just resting my eyes.”

Brad shakes his head. “A relationship built on lies is doomed to fail from the start,” he says as they are getting off the train.

_Relationship._

Patrice decides he could get used to the sound of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, the irony of having to post this from my phone because the amtrak wifi is too shitty -_-

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading friends! If you liked what you read please do let me know- comments are what keep me coming back to write more every time. This fic also came out of a prompt ask on tumblr. I'm at @blindbatalex over there and my ask box is always open for prompts or anything fandom/fic related.


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